Case Number 18398: Small Claims Court

WOMEN IN TROUBLE

The Charge

High Hopes, High Anxiety, High Heels.

The Case

The first sign of trouble is that this film deals exclusively in women's
issues is written, but is directed by a man: Sebastian Gutierrez (whose esteemed
writing credits also include Snakes on a Plane). I'm not saying men can't
understand women. I'm sure some do. RuPaul, for instance. However, Gutierrez
does not.

Full disclose: I am a man, and might not be the best arbiter of female
understanding. Still, watching this film I found myself dumbfounded by nearly
every other scene, as these characters resemble no women I have met or even
heard of.

Women in Trouble is an accurate title: the movie is populated by a
serious of women who are interconnected and in trouble. Several of these women
are porn stars, including Elektra Luxx (Carla Gugino, Watchmen), Holly
Rocket (Adrianne Palicki, Friday Night Lights), and Bambi (Emmanuelle
Chriqui, Entourage). Luxx is in trouble because she has been impregnated
by a drug-addled rock star. Rocket has two problems: she's the eyewitness to a
murder and has a mental block that prevents her from performing oral sex on
women. Bambi's not really in trouble, though her sugar daddy's murder does
perturb her.

There are also a few women in trouble who are not porn stars: Doris (Connie
Britton, Friday Night Lights) has family problems and is stuck in an
elevator with Luxx and Maxine (Sarah Clarke, Men of a Certain Age) is a
therapist who's just learned that her husband is having an affair with one of
her patients.

The ensemble cast features more noteworthy supporting characters --
including additional women in trouble -- but to list all of them would
compromise one of the film's few assets, namely weaving together several
seemingly disparate plots into one cohesive story. It's no easy trick, and
Gutierrez deserves credit for making it look effortless.

That said, my difficulty with the film's characters ran too deep to be
overcome by clever plotting. One of the more egregious problems is with all the
film's porn stars. They are not only blasé about working in porn, but
Gutierrez makes it seem like having sex for a living has no bearing on any other
aspect of their life -- or, even worse, the plot. The racy dialogue not only
doesn't ring true, but these women's jobs only add a bit of off-putting color to
the movie.

It's not as if Gutierrez only has a tin ear when it comes to racy talk. The
subplot involving Maxine is, on the surface, the most realistic, yet still
absurd. Maxine's response to the infidelity initially seems odd, but the
eventual showdown with her husband was one of the most befuddling domestic
arguments I've ever seen.

There are loads of other head-shaking scenes in the film, but perhaps the
most amusing aspect is how nearly every female character is incredibly
good-looking, and just about all of them -- even the non-porn stars -- end up in
their underwear at some point. My inner teenager was pleased by this, but it
only further undermined the film's pretense of seriousness.

Ultimately, it is this pretense that may be Women in Trouble's
biggest liability. The movie is not that funny, but there is much more comedic
potential here than dramatic. However, neither of these avenues is fully
committed to. A good example is a soliloquy a character gives, recounting a
childhood memory of getting oral sex from a dog. The story is not really played
for humor (the obvious choice) or even really dramatic -- which could work,
since this was probably a traumatic experience. Instead she just tells the story
and the only possible audience response is to grimace. Sadly, that just about
sums it up for the film as a whole.

The picture on the DVD leaves a lot to be desired, while the sound quality
is adequate. Women in Trouble takes place over the course of a day,
though the timeline doesn't seem consistent. For example, characters will refer
to it being late at the night while sunshine is clearly seeping in through the
windows. The muddled colors in the transfer exacerbate this problem. At night,
there is poor contrast and shadows envelope actors and sometimes the surrounding
scenery as well.

For a movie with as much energy as this, the soundtrack is muted, and there
are only a few musical cues that register on the rear speakers (the opening
credits is the only highlight).

The disc also features a handful of deleted scenes, a featurette, and a
trailer, though the best extra appears after the film's closing credits. In a
cameo most people will probably miss, Joseph Gordon-Levitt interviews Luxx and
Rocket. It's not side-splittingly funny, but probably delivers the biggest
laughs of the movie.